news
Newsstand: January 7, 2011
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
It’s Friday, so let’s get our news on, whatever that means. Today, pinko bikers rejoice, books and bedbugs are expensive, and will Thomson run again?
But what’s Don Cherry going to say? Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East), chair of the public works and infrastructure committee, will introduce a plan to build a series of connected bike lanes around the downtown core. The lanes would be separated from car traffic by a curb and if approved, construction could begin by the end of the year. While the idea still has to be costed, Mayor Ford’s team has evidently signed off in principle.
While you’re waiting for your bike lane to be built, the transit debate continues, with new numbers being tossed around daily. Yesterday the Globe “debunked” the Toronto Environmental Alliance and Pembina Institute reports that showed how much cheaper and more useful the Transit City LRT would be than the subway plan proposed by the Ford administration. The article points out that both studies include lines that are not definitely funded and hence provide an exaggerated view of the benefits. That said, no one is debating that cross-city light rail lines will serve more people and be more cost-effective than an underused stubway out to Scarborough. The discussion is around the details.
Which segues nicely into the news that some late-night bus routes are under review by the TTC. TTC Union head Bob Kinnear told the Star that he’s been informed that some “underperforming” 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. routes are being looked at, presumably to consider their ongoing viability. There’s also a rumour the Request Stop program, which allows women travelling at night to get off the bus at locations between regular TTC stops, could be extended to the subway system.
All right, everyone, time for today’s episode of “Gravy Train or Not?” Toronto Public Health is declining the mayor’s invitation to cut their budget and is instead looking for a boost of 1.49%, including half a million to fight the bedbug scourge. Because the province will pony up three bucks for ever dollar spent by the city on public health programs, the funding would give the department two million dollars to send the bloodsucking fiends screaming back to the verminous hell from whence they came.
Also not finding requested efficiencies is the library board, which last night voted to ask for a 2.6% budget increase in a bid to avoid closing branches and reducing the purchase of new materials. Being mayor is hard.
With a provincial election coming up in October, the NDP are looking to score votes by promising to scrap $850 million in corporate tax cuts and use the savings to eliminate the HST on hydro, heating oil, and natural gas bills. Provincial finance minister Dwight Duncan called the idea “the most short-sighted, dumb public policy pronouncement one can envision,” saying it would hamper the economic recovery.
A story out yesterday claims that mayoral also-ran Sarah Thomson is being courted by the Liberals to run for MPP in the Parkdale-High Park riding. However a ThomsonTO tweet last night said it was news to her, so you decide.